Page 22 - Unit 731

Surgeons. In 1928, Colonel Shirō Ishii, army surgeon and researcher sent abroad, observed social developments in various European countries, lamented that our nation was not equipped with similar
facilities, which was a weakness in national security. After he came back from observations in Europe and the US in 1930, he reported to management about the weakness and suggested that related
research should be conducted immediately. Later, Ishii consistently repeated experimental research during his leisure time as a lecturer at the school. With the support of Lecturer Koizumi and
approval from the management, a research laboratory headed by Shirō Ishii was set up inside the school.… As the fundamental research of epidemic prevention advanced and in order to practically
apply results in battlefields, surgeon Ishii bravely stationed in Manchuria even though difficulties existed, dedicated to the establishment of an epidemic prevention institute. In order to apply the
research results and fulfil requests of epidemic prevention from various teams of the imperial military in Manchuria, a new epidemic prevention institute closely attached to the inner inland (the
territory of Japan’s home islands) was eventually founded in 1936. Certainly, parallel to epidemic prevention research laboratories in the inner island, this institute was the core of epidemic prevention
of the imperial military, which was striving for the important mission of epidemic prevention warfare at the stationing area. 7
On 8 December 1932, the Army Ministry approved a budget of ￥ 208,989 to expand the Research Institute of Epidemic Prevention of the School of Army
Surgeons, to increase the number of laboratories, offices, operating rooms, electrical substations, and warehouses, to construct special rooms for breeding
small animals, and to produce bacteria of cholera, typhoid fever, and melioidosis. The Institute was able to expand just six months after its founding,
reflecting the acceptance of Shirō Ishii and his advocacy of bacteriological warfare by the Japanese military.
As mentioned, ‘a new epidemic prevention institute closely attached to the inner inland was eventually founded in 1936’—Ishii’s Unit 731. Linked
closely to the School of Army Surgeons, Unit 731 became the core of national epidemic prevention; it also assumed the responsibility of ‘the important
mission of epidemic prevention warfare’. The upper level of the Japanese government also actively drove preparation of bacteriological warfare, which was
considered a means of external military invasion.
From Tokyo to Harbin: Establishment of Kamo Unit
After Japan invaded Harbin, its influence spread over the entirety of north-eastern China. In August 1933, Shirō Ishii secretly moved the Research Institute
of Epidemic Prevention to Harbin, which is in the Nangang area (Xuanhua Street today). He also secretly set up a laboratory at Beiyinhe, Wuchang city,
under the name Kamo Unit, the former body of Unit 731. Ishii also established the Tokyo Branch of Ishii Unit in the School of Army Surgeons where he
held office. He commonly travelled between Tokyo and Harbin and conducted research and testing of bacteriological weapons with colleagues, such as
Ryoichi Naitō (内藤良一) of the Tokyo branch, in both cities.
Shirō Ishii was born in Chiyoda Village of Sanbu District in Chiba Prefecture, which geographically belonged to ‘Kamo Area’ at that time; therefore,
Unit 731 was named Kamo Unit (see Fig. 1).
Two sections were established under the Kamo Unit: the General Affairs and the Research Section, and under Research were ‘Minami subsection’ and
‘Kotsū subsection’. ‘Minami’, based at the general office of the Kamo Unit, did research on epidemic prevention and water purification, while ‘Kotsū’
conducted bacteriological experiments at Beiyinhe, Wuchang city. Beiyinhe was one of the stations along Rafa–Harbin Railway that became a small town
after railway construction. As it can be accessed by rail and was near Harbin city, the Kamo Unit built an associated bacteriological factory here, which was
disguised as a common barrel of the Japanese military. The Kamo Unit sent a captain named ‘Chūma’ to manage the facilities at Beiyinhe, so the site was
also called ‘city of Chūma’. The city of Chūma was highly secured behind walls more than 3 metres tall, surrounded by moats, sentries at corners, and a
high voltage electrical net on the wall.
Beiyinhe Experiment Field: First Base of Human Experimentation

Shirō Ishii had already conducted human experiments at the initial stage of the Kamo Unit. Sanrō Endō visited Beiyinhe on 16 November 1933, writing in
his diary:
… at 8 a.m., Yasutatsu, Tatsubana and myself visited the Transportation squadron for the development of experiments. The Second Division was conducting poisonous gas and liquid experiments
while the First Division was an electrical experiment, and each section applied their experiments on two gangsters. In the gas laboratory, one person was exposed to a poisonous gas, causing
pneumonia, which was much worse than yesterday with little life signs today. Another one was injected with 15 ml of potassium cyanate and lost consciousness after 20 minutes. In the electrical
experiment, the first person did not die despite repeated electric shocks at 20,000 volts. He was eventually killed by injection. A second person had not died at 5,000 volts. He was killed by burning
through electric shock for several minutes. 8
A year after the establishment of the Beiyinhe Experiment Field, a prison break of ‘materials of human experiment’ took place on 23 September 1934, the
day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, when more than thirty people escaped the prison. Tsuyang Wang, one of the surviving escapees, remembers:
Half a month ago, Lee and I were walking on a street in Harbin. Suddenly, Kembei (Military Police) and police (City Police) blocked every exit of the street, saying that no matter that they are
working, catch them all if they are young and strong. We two were not able to hide ourselves immediately, and we were caught and put onto a truck. More than 40 people were forced onto a train from
Xiangfang train station and sent to Beiyinhe overnight. We found something strange after we were jailed. We patiently asked someone who had been sent out and back to the cell, and we were told a
secret—that the Japanese used us for bacteriological experiments. Therefore, we decided we could not stay until we died here. We prepared to break jail on the night of Mid-Autumn at the time of
meal delivery. On that night, the moon was covered by clouds, and it was raining. Except for soldiers stationed at the watchtowers in the city of Chūma, the rest of the Japanese soldiers were having
fun in a restaurant. At midnight, a Japanese guard came toward the cell and delivered a basket of meals and a bottle of wine at the opening of the barriers. I was talking to the drunk guard and picked
up the basket, while Lee hit the guard’s head when receiving the wine. I then took the key from the guard’s waist, he fell down beside the barrier, and I opened the door of the cell. After that, all
prisoners proceeded to the east of the wall under my leadership.
At this moment, the city of Chūma suddenly turned dark because the electricity was shut down, and searchlights were on when we could hear noise from upper levels. Prisoners set up a ladder with
their bodies to climb over the wall, and ran east after crossing the moat. Only Lee was left inside as nobody assisted him in climbing the wall. Then understanding what happened, Japanese soldiers
started aimlessly shooting and quickly surrounded where we climbed up the wall. Lee was sacrificed with honour.
Chased by soldiers outside the city of Chūma, 20-some of the prisoners were shot and died, while two prisoners were able to escape to Bajiazi, 15 miles away from Chūma. One of them was
immediately killed, and the other was transported back to Chūma under escort after they were discovered by Shengsan Wu, a traitor who claimed himself a leader of the self-guarding group. The
remaining 12 prisoners escaped to different places: five went to Xinfatun where local people helped them to break their fetters; seven ran to Chengjagang, three miles east of Chūma, to break their
fetters and hide there with help from brothers of Zemin Wu and Huamin Wu. At midnight the next day, they joined the team of resistance. 9
The secret of the city of Chūma was exposed. The first curator of the 731 Museum, Xiao Han, went to Wuchang in 1983 for an investigation of the history
in Beiyinhe, collecting oral material from five local witnesses: Zemin Wu, Huamin Wu, Feng Pang, Zhongheng Jin, and Bin Wang. These are now
preserved in the Harbin Social Science Academy. In his memoir, recorded on 8 July 1983, Huamin Wu stated:
My home is Chengjiagang, two miles east of the ‘Jail of Eastern Manchuria’. On the night of the Mid-Autumn that year, we heard footsteps behind our house. We listened for a short while and heard
someone knock and say ‘fellows, please open the door’. This was an accent from Shandong. After he opened the door, Wu Zemin, my brother, saw seven people wearing fetters. These seven people
said, ‘hurry, help us to break these fetters. We escaped from Beiyinhe’.
My brother found an axe and an anvil in the house, calling me to come as well. We led them to a hole of yellow mud. While I kept watching around, my brother broke fetters of several of them but
not all. Then I saw flashlights with some noise in the southwest direction. We realised that the Japanese had chased them. We did not have enough time to break all the fetters, and so some of them had
broken fetters on one foot. Right after this, we heard the Japanese, and the seven people had run to the east, saying, ‘thanks fellows, we will come back in the future’. We went back to the house right
before the Japanese entered the village. They did not notice us because we blew out the light. I have not told anybody about this thing, and my brother died after a few years. 10
Did the Emperor Know?
In order to heighten secrecy and enlarge the bacteriological factory, Shirō Ishii suggested the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office transfer the
teams related to bacteriological research in 1936. According to ‘The Case of Former Japanese Army Preparing and Utilizing Bacteriological Weapons: